Sunday, June 8, 2014

{The Vinegar Experiment} Removing Hard Water Buildup

We live in central Texas and the majority of municipal water is supplied by the Edwards Aquifer, a large underground artesian aquifer. Because the aquifer was formed by limestone formations many, many years ago, the water is hard – meaning lots of limescale and calcium buildup if you don’t have a water softener (which, of course, we don’t). Thus, I’m stuck with faucets that look like this:

Not only is is unpleasant to see, but the scale encourages a slimy layer of biofilm to form (ew) and clogs the faucet aerator. It’s a constant battle and it sucks.

I used to try and clean away scale with lime-away, but I was constantly having to reapply and the smell was overwhelming… so I decided to try an all-natural remedy to see if it would work. Enter a little bit of vinegar, a sandwich bag, and a clip.

Simply fill your baggie about 1/3 full with vinegar and apply as follows to your faucet, making certain the faucet is submerged in the vinegar.

If you can let this sit overnight, it’ll work really well. I soaked this faucet for about three hours and it worked well but there was still a bit of scale left. Before you remove the bag, rub along the scale areas and aerator to help remove the loosened material. It’ll fall right into your bag – be prepared for ick. After removing the bag, run the water to flush out any residual slime.

And here’s the after – it’s crazy how well it works and this wasn’t even a full soak! I can’t wait to bust out the gallon bag to try on my showerhead!

Now, as for the title of this post: The Vinegar Experiment. I’ll be experimenting with the many ways vinegar can be part of a homekeeping routine and will be sharing those posts here so stay tuned!

Do you have hard water like me?? What do you use that works? I’d love to hear your suggestions!